The Detective's Secret

by Thomson, Lesley

  A square of white lay inside the photo booth: a set of rejects carelessly dropped. Stella batted aside the curtain and retrieved it; flipping it over she stared unbelieving. In each of the four shots was a man. He was facing the wrong way; the photographs were all of the back of his head. No one did that by accident. Not seeing a bin, Stella slipped the sheet into her anorak pocket.

  Goldhawk Road was quiet – no traffic, no sign of the inspector or of the man who had used the photograph booth. On the bridge, the Richmond train slid to a stop, the windows yellow squares against the sky.

  Hurrying Stanley beneath the bridge before the train moved off, Stella got an incoming text. It was Jack.

  Frost wasn’t running towards the train, he was running away from someone.

  20

  October 1987

  By half past four the last of the light gave way to dusk. A pewter-grey sky dulled the waters of the Thames, and conflicting currents between Chiswick Mall and the eyot, fast flowing and dangerous, plaited the surface.

  The scrawl of traffic on the Great West Road was muffled by the brewery, a bulwark for the gale that smacked against the embankment wall and harassed mooring chains. On the far bank, spindly larches along the towpath bent against the force. An undulating moan resembled a wail of regret, ever more insistent. A storm was brewing; some talked of a hurricane.

  On Chiswick Eyot, beneath the hiss of the wind, the river rose with the wash and hush of the turning tide and a constant trickling. Where once the Thames had dredged up oyster shells and fragments of clay beer mugs, now it offered up more vivid London detritus to the ragged shoreline. Plastic bottles, rubber gloves – blue, yellow, red – tangles of nylon rope, a fractured storage crate.

  Three children scampered out from the church porch and, battling against the gale, made it to railings overlooking the beach. Abruptly one broke away and pointed with a half-finger. ‘Follow me,’ he cried.

  Simon sounded more confident than he felt. Aided by the wind, he marched along the pavement, careful not to check that the others were behind him, for fear of betraying doubt that they would be.

  He ducked down a cobbled passageway, the stones slick and black. Someone stepped on his heel. Simon switched on his torch. It was Nicky. The Captain was there too. They had obeyed him.

  ‘Where are we going?’ the Captain demanded.

  ‘Can’t you guess?’ Simon shone the torch into his face. He ran along the alley and halted by the cage door. He shone the torch upwards. In open-mouthed awe, as if watching a spaceship land, the children gazed up at the tower.

  ‘What is that?’ The Captain’s voice quavered. He rattled the cage. The hum of vibrating metal rang in their ears after he let go. ‘We shouldn’t be here,’ he said to Nicky.

  Simon pulled on his half-finger. If the Captain ordered her to leave, Nicky would go and it would be over. In the last hours Simon had formed two ambitions: one, he would impress Nicky so much she would be his friend; two, he would become the Captain. Lying in bed late the previous night, the boy had worked out that either of these ambitions would lead to the other. Somehow this would lead him to Justin.

  ‘We shouldn’t be anywhere,’ Simon said. ‘The unit works undercover. We “slide under the wire of rules and regulations”.’ He had mugged up on spies. He saw Nicky smile and turn her head away to avoid the Captain seeing. It was going well.

  Simon turned the handle in the grille. The door opened with a terrible groan.

  ‘Anyone could get in. It’s not secure,’ the Captain objected. ‘Let’s go.’

  Simon was thunderstruck. In a flash of a second he understood the situation. The Captain was scared. In all his planning and imaginings, Simon had supposed the Captain invincible, a formidable opponent. But he had an Achilles heel. With a steady hand, Simon shone the torch into the other boy’s face and, deathly calm, said, ‘We could get a padlock, but it would give us away.’

  ‘How did you know about this place?’ the Captain whispered.

  ‘I found it on reconnaissance.’ Simon was airy. ‘It’s the ideal HQ. It’s fortified with full sight of the surrounding territory.’

  ‘It must belong to someone,’ the Captain persisted.

  ‘It belongs to me.’ In the dark Simon smiled. The future was unfolding: the water tower was his; he was the host and they would be his guests. He would be the Captain.

  ‘We should come in the day,’ Nicky said.

  ‘It is the day,’ the Captain snapped at her.

  ‘I meant with more light,’ Nicky said. She darted a look at Simon and he felt his nerve falter. As if it had been orchestrated, they were hit by a gust of wind. The metal vibrated and jangled.

  ‘I’m Captain, I’m going first.’ The Captain fell into Simon’s trap.

  ‘This is illegal. We can’t go in, it’s not ours,’ Nicky said.

  ‘We can if we want, we’re allowed,’ the Captain replied coldly.

  Simon jammed his hands in his mac pockets. Used to exclusion, he was at home with the ‘divide and rule’ tactic.

  ‘Don’t be stupid, your mum would—’

  ‘Shut up, Nicky.’ The Captain rounded on her, yelling above the rising howl as the gusts became more frequent.

  Simon took a risk. ‘Perhaps we should wait for the light.’ He addressed the Captain, careful not to look at Nicky, but hoping to indicate that he was with her. Living with warring parents, Simon had learnt how to be on two sides at once.

  ‘Nicky is scared.’ The Captain peered up through the criss-cross of silver lines.

  ‘You hate heights and this is high!’ Intending kindness, the girl unknowingly sealed both her own and the Captain’s fate. The Captain was afraid of heights. That was his Achilles heel. Simon saw that Nicky was trying to protect him. That the Captain should need protection implied he was weak.

  The Captain pushed past them into the cage and began to climb. The grille shook as he ascended, the high-pitched thrum mingled with the wind.

  ‘You’re mean.’ Nicky’s breath was hot on Simon’s ear.

  Simon felt that the giant columns stretching high above might crumble and crush him. He turned in time to see a shadow on the glistening brickwork in the passage. Nicky had gone.

  The wind intensified to a howl. Stung by her accusation, he set off up the staircase.

  A curving walkway was fixed to the base of the tank with rivets and protected by a thin metal rail. Simon tried to grab it, missed and fell on to his knees. The pain winded him. Grasping the rail, he shuffled forward. The Captain stood with his back to the tower wall as if at gunpoint.

  ‘You’re mean!’

  Long ago Justin had said the same words. Simon flushed with shame. What had happened with Justin’s tunnel in the kitchen garden wasn’t mean. Justin was his friend; he’d tried to save him. He wouldn’t save the Captain. He let go of the rail and, avoiding looking down, he strolled along the walkway towards him.

  The Captain didn’t move, obviously fearful that even a twitch would send him plummeting down.

  Simon found a handle set into the steel; he pulled it and the door opened with a shriek.

  ‘What is this place?’ The Captain spoke like a ventriloquist, head stiff, mouth like a letterbox.

  ‘It’s a water tower, it stores water and redistributes it.’ Justin had told him the basic principle; since then Simon had looked them up.

  ‘If it’s full of water, it’s impractical.’

  ‘It’s empty, it was “mothballed”.’ If only Justin could hear him. ‘This is a panopticon! We will spy on the enemy; they won’t know we are here. If there’s hundreds of enemies, they won’t know there’s only the three of us. Wherever they go we will track them. We have three-hundred-and-sixty-degree vision. The tower gives us supremacy!’ Abandoning grammar Simon spread his arms like Tutankhamen, the Boy King.

  ‘We can’t spy all the time, there’s school.’ The Captain began a slow sideways shuffle towards the door. Once inside the tower he leant over, hands on knees, pan
ting as if he had run a marathon.

  ‘The enemy won’t know when we’re not here.’ Simon cast back to his notes taken in Chiswick library. ‘They won’t know when to attack, so they won’t attack.’ Belatedly, he properly grasped the brilliance of the idea.

  Before Simon could stop him, the Captain shut the tower door. The clang ricocheted around the walls like a series of explosions. His mum told him never to shut doors in unfamiliar places, like the chest freezer in the basement. Simon tried the handle and hid his relief that the door opened. He pushed it to, carefully. Justin said you had to respect buildings.

  Light drifted in from a porthole high above. When Simon turned on his torch he saw they were standing by a twisting spiral staircase. Up and up it went.

  There was a door to the left. The Captain kicked it open and went inside. They were in a huge circular room with rough cement walls. Simon kept the door ajar. With no windows there was no sense of how high up they were: this seemed to make the Captain braver. Simon’s authority depended on the Captain’s fear. He fiddled with his half-finger.

  ‘There’s loads of space for when we – you – recruit. And it’s dry.’ Simon didn’t know why he was whispering.

  ‘We can’t see out? How do we see the enemy?’ The Captain paced the perimeter.

  ‘We go on to the roof. And there are those slits in the walls. They don’t know we can’t see through them. Anyway it’s not what we see, it’s what the enemy thinks we can see.’

  ‘How do we get upstairs?’

  Simon was saved from admitting he didn’t know by a dreadful screech. Then an insidious hum like singing, accompanied by metallic tapping. The boys froze. Someone was coming down the corkscrew staircase.

  ‘You idiot! The enemy are in occupation.’ The Captain pushed Simon against the wall. ‘Lure them off,’ he hissed. ‘When it’s all clear I’ll go for reinforcements.’

  ‘He might be armed.’ Simon realized that ‘lure them off’ meant ‘let them kill you’. This was what the Captain meant by loyalty.

  Simon was furious with himself for leaving the door ajar. His adherence to safety might now cost him his life. At least the Captain had shut the big entrance door, so the enemy wouldn’t immediately suspect an intruder. As he thought this, a howling gale rushed into the lobby and he realized the entrance door had been opened. The powerful draught pushed their door open further. Simon tried to back away from the gap, but the Captain stopped him.

  ‘Go out there,’ he hissed.

  Simon shook his head vehemently. ‘I won’t until they know we are here.’

  The staircase was humming again. There was someone else there.

  ‘Promise me you’ll—’ a man said.

  Simon shuddered. The man was so close, that if Simon reached out he would be able to touch him, but the wind and his own terror stopped him hearing all the words.

  He couldn’t hear the other person.

  ‘ —next Saturday at Stam—. You won’t regret—’

  A mumbled reply. Simon shut his eyes, but could only hear the first man.

  ‘You owe it to yourself. We only have— life— make— of it. When we’re settled we— the kid. One step— time— like living in a coffin, you said so—!’

  Simon crept to the opening and, peeping out, saw two people. In the thin light from the porthole they looked like Hosts. Simon’s word for murderers, he had told Justin.

  One was the man. His head was bald on top like a monk and he was bent over the other person. He was kissing them. Simon was repulsed and wished he was at home with his mum, but she was out with a friend. He didn’t care about being captain, he just wanted to be on the sofa watching a film with her – the best of friends – the two of them.

  The man moved towards the gap. Simon retreated, but again the Captain stopped him. The other person was a woman. Dark hair, blue coat. His mother’s hands. There was the big red stone on her wedding ring. Her real wedding ring; it wasn’t the one in his pocket. He could make no sense of what he was seeing. It was his mother. Instinctively he moved towards her and then was jerked backwards and manhandled to the floor. The Captain was on top of him, his hand clamped over his mouth.

  The clanging began again. Then silence.

  The Captain was by the door.

  ‘She’s gone.’ He clasped his hands, bending forward as if in agony. ‘That was a real live prostitute!’ He snuffled with stifled giggles. ‘Did you see?’ He dipped about the tank, clutching his stomach.

  A prostitute.

  Simon kicked out at the Captain, but he was on the other side of the concrete room and out of his reach. He scrambled to his feet and launched at him.

  ‘She is not a pros—’ he spluttered.

  ‘What else would she be?’ The Captain grabbed him and spun him around. His height and age played against Simon; in seconds the Captain had him in a tight grip like a straitjacket. He shoved him up against the wall and hissed, ‘Shut up! The man is still up there.’

  Gradually it dawned on Simon that the Captain had never seen his mother.

  It was not his mother. By now she would be making the tea at home, giving his sister a bath; he must leave.

  ‘You’re scared of her,’ the Captain jeered.

  ‘I’m not.’ Simon edged towards the door, but the Captain was blocking him.

  ‘Prove it.’

  ‘How?’ Now the Captain was being mean, but Nicky wasn’t there to hear.

  ‘Go up that staircase and come down again. Only after I’ve counted to twenty. Then you can be in the unit!’

  ‘What if he comes out while I’m there?’

  ‘That’s how you prove your loyalty. If you don’t do that, I’ll have you court-martialled and shot.’

  ‘I stole my mum’s wedding ring, like you said.’ Simon fumbled for the ring, but couldn’t find it.

  ‘You what?’ The Captain grabbed Simon by the shoulders again and shook him, making his teeth clack together.

  ‘Like you wanted, I stole it off my mother.’

  ‘I didn’t say steal her wedding ring! She’ll call the police and expose us!’

  ‘She won’t.’ Simon was suddenly sure. The ring had been in a box hidden at the back of her dressing table; his mother didn’t want anyone to know it was there. She wouldn’t call the police when she saw it was missing.

  ‘You failed one mission, you’d better succeed at this one.’ The Captain’s voice was kind. He might simply be concerned.

  ‘To twenty?’ Simon confirmed.

  The Captain gave a terse nod. ‘Twenty seconds.’

  Simon crept out into the little space at the foot of the stairs. He put his bad hand on the rail and stared up at the twisting staircase. The tower door was beside him; if he made a dash for it, the Captain would be too frightened chase him. But he would never see Nicky again, he would never be captain and he could never recruit Justin to the unit. He would be a no one.

  He climbed very slowly to avoid making a noise, but even so the staircase began to hum. The constant turns disorientated him. Halfway up there was another door, made of metal and very thick. It was open a few centimetres.

  ‘Hon, you came back. I knew you would!’ The man was inside.

  One. Two. Three.

  Simon looked over the platform rail. The Captain was a few steps below. Simon hadn’t heard him climb the staircase.

  Seven. Eight. Nine.

  The Captain was on the platform, behind the open door, his eyes blazing. Hazel flecked with green, they didn’t blink. He was smiling as if he liked Simon.

  A resounding crash echoed around the tower. Heedless of falling, Simon hurtled down the staircase and plunged out of the main door.

  On the narrow walkway a violent gust flung him against the guard rail. He teetered over the edge of the yawning darkness and dropped to the floor, his knees grazed by the cold metal. Fingers groping for the holes in the grille surface, he crawled along it to the staircase and flew down the stairs, his feet hardly touching the metal.

/>   On Chiswick Mall, he stopped and looked up. The massive tank housing loomed above him, a crouching demon against the darkening sky. There was no sign of the Captain, but through the vents in the tank Simon believed the man with the bald patch was watching.

  Simon cut through the churchyard; tripping and stumbling between the graves, he aimed for the string of pinprick lights of his street.

  On Corney Road, a stitch in his side and with bloodied grazes on his knees, Simon slowed to a walk and limped along to his gate. His home was the only house with the curtains open, the lights blazing. His mum was sitting on the sofa. She glanced out of the window. Simon told himself that she had been there all the time. That it was him she was looking out for.

  21

  Tuesday, 22 October 2013

  ‘Mary, Mary, quite contrary

  How does your garden grow?’

  A scream. Balanced on his haunches, Jack grabbed at a willow frond. A gull was perched on the tide marker. As he watched, it opened its beak and let out another anguished cry.

  The sun had gone behind a cloud; soon it would be dark. Absorbed in weeding his Garden of the Dead, Jack had not considered he could be stranded on the eyot. Usually alive to alteration in the rippling water, this evening, mulling on Rick Frost’s mysterious death, he had lost sense of time.

  ‘With silver bells and cockle shells

  And pretty maids all in a row.’

  Jack snipped the last of the reeds and grasses in the bed. The wild flowers – London rocket, wild garlic, poppies and flixweed – that, over the last year, he had planted in honour of the dead attracted bees and butterflies in the spring and died back in the winter. They surrounded a circle of white stones that represented the souls of his dead. At the centre was his mother.

  He fetched his coat from beneath the willow and a paper flew out of the pocket. Jack snatched it up. Besides his planting and the stones, he left no trace of his visits to the eyot. Only once, when he was young, had he met others in his garden.

  To Let.

  Apartment in Water Tower.